The old adage of “Sell Rosh Hashanah, Buy Yom Kippur” seemed to play out initially during Wednesday’s trading action, but the S&P 500 index futures ended up concluding the session nearly perfectly flat.
Overnight, the bears held a lid on the index futures which prevented the bulls from sustaining a bid above Tuesday’s close. At 8:15am EDT, bulls were able to initiate a small rally after September’s ADP employment numbers came in above expectations (143,000 vs. 128,000 exp.). The rally didn’t last long before sellers were back in control for the opening bell.
Once the regular session began, the bears drove the index futures straight down to make new lows for the week (5724), but the buy-the-dippers came right back in to bring the index futures up past the 9:30am open and then some. Once the bulls breached unchanged, the action started oscillating above and below that level for the rest of the day.
While the index was meandering, many Fed speakers took the stage, Iran’s president stated they don’t seek war but will respond to any Israel retaliation, and the G-7 started planning sanctions on Iran. While neither the bulls or bears won out, the bears were able to trim some of the day’s gains in the final minutes before the close. The session concluded in the upper half of the day’s range at 5760.25, tacking on half a handle.
Among the top components of the index, Broadcom Inc (NASDAQ: AVGO) emerged as the biggest gainer. The chip designer was able to advance by $3.19 or 1.90% to close at $170.66 for the day.
For those keeping track, that performance was a magnificent 47 times better than the cash index’s advance of 0.04%.
On the other hand, the biggest loser was Tesla Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA). After their Q3 deliveries report met expectations, it failed to satisfy the high bar of stockholders and the EV maker declined by $9.00 or 3.49% to close at $249.02.
